Hip-Hop is partially recognized as a “Sport”. DJs compete, Break dancers dual and rappers battle. This has always been the “code of the streets” until Rapper Kangol Kid (lead member of rap group UTFO) and Roxanne Shantè’s “Roxanne War” took this street-code to the airwaves and dominated Hip-Hop radio with the mid 80’s rap song “Roxanne, Roxanne”. Today, both artists are managed by Film Executive Shaunda Lumpkin and together have taken on a new battle… Breast Cancer.

Six months ago, Shaunda’s mother Gay Frances Lucas(affectionately known as “Mama Luke”) lost her three-year battle with this disease. In her last year, Mama Luke appeared on the Wendy Williams Show for a Breast Cancer Awareness Special and was invited on the Tom Joyner Fantastic Voyage as a VIP guest. Her passing spawned the Mama Luke Movement, which encouraged Hip-Hop Artists Dana Dane, Joe Ski Love, NYOIL, R&B Group Force MDs and Actor Stu “Large” Riley(hit movie “KICKASS”) to walk alongside Shaunda, Kangol and Shantè (who is also a breast cancer survivor) at the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk on Sunday, October 17, 2010, where they were greeted by Newark, New Jersey’s Mayor Cory Booker. A week later, the ACS recognized the Mama Luke team as a Top 10 fundraising team of Newark, NJ.

This accomplishment led Shaunda and Kangol to create the monthly “Mama Luke Salute” designed to honor a breast cancer fighter and take them from a day of chemo treatment to an evening of “royalty treatment”. During this event, the “fighter” is showered with gifts from various sponsors.

Mama Luke Athletic Footwear design

Kangol and Shaunda’s insatiable appetite for bringing awareness to this disease has now manifested as Hip-Hop’s First Bowling Team. The HIP-HOP PIN DROP is designed to cure cancer “One PIN At A Time” as various Hip-Hop artists/celebrities will travel from city to city, to our nation’s various bowling alleys and bowl against fans while raising funds and awareness. The first game will be Thursday, January 6, 2011 in New York City’s FRAMES Bowling Lounge located at 550 Ninth Avenue and West 40th Street. Scheduled to bowl are: Sugar Hill Gang, Kool Herc, Doitall, Dana Dane, UTFO, Daryl “Chill” Mitchell, Jam Master Jay’s son Jason Mizell Jr.… and the list keeps growing.

Shaunda and Kangol’s long-term goal is to design and manufacture a line of Mama Luke Athletic Footwear to generate more funds towards a cure. Kangol says, “This is the closest we want anyone to walk in her (Mama Luke) shoes”.

This is just another example of how hip hop can make a positive change in people’s lives. I have known Kangol for close to 20 years and he has always demonstrated a sincere willingness to come to service if he is called upon and for that we salute him and the others who are bringing awareness to a very important cause” stated hip hop veteran Dennis Byron who toured with the group U.T.F.O. many years ago.